Andy Goram: Annan and Peterhead are tougher venues for Rangers than Leeds or Marseille

Elland Road and the Stade Velodrome – where Rangers played in their Champions
League campaign of 1992-93 – were less daunting venues than the grounds
currently experienced by the Ibrox side in SFL Division Three, according to
the man who played in goal for them 20 years ago.

Speaking ahead of Thursday’s quarter-final draw for the Scottish Communities League Cup – which could produce an Old Firm tie – Andy Goram said: “It was easier for us to play at Elland Road and Marseille than it is for them to play at Annan and Peterhead – a lot easier.

“We went down to play Annan during the Nineties and it was an absolute nightmare. The game was played on a public pitch and there was just one railing around it.

“It was the same when we played San Marino with Scotland. It was on a public pitch and it’s hard work to get yourself going but these boys are doing it every other week so they need to get it going pretty quickly.

“Away from home it’s not so much ability that matters, it’s attitude. You have to earn the right to go and play. First you’ve got to fight and win your battles, then you can play.

“It’s easy for people on the outside to look at what’s happening and say they’re not doing well away from home but it’s not easy to go to these grounds.

"We had to do it maybe once or twice in a season at most and it’s not easy to lift your game at all, you’re a professional and you’re playing at a big club.

“But these guys knew it was coming so now it’s a case of getting their heads around it and getting stuck in and that’s where the likes of Lee McCulloch and Ian Black and Neil Alexander, the senior players, come in. The young boys have been brilliant but Lee has been the standout by a mile.”

Thursday’s League Cup draw at Hampden Park will be made by another former Rangers goalkeeper, Bobby Brown, who was a member of the Ibrox side who won the first tournament in 1946-47 and who went on to manage Scotland.

Aberdeen, Celtic, Dundee United, Hearts, Inverness, St Johnstone, Rangers and St Mirren go into the ballot and, although there is a considerable disparity in strength between post-liquidation Rangers and Celtic – who recorded their first Champions League group stage victory away from home in Moscow on Tuesday – Goram yearns for an Old Firm collision.

“I really want to play Celtic, I really would,” said the man who is still idolised by the Ibrox support. “We’re only quarter of the way into the season and everyone in the country is missing it.

“Even the most bitter Rangers and Celtic fans can’t say they’re not missing the Old Firm games – they’re the best games in the world. I wouldn’t fear for Rangers, that game would take care of itself.

“I’d bet Rangers, actually. Motherwell have had a fantastic start to the season and fully deserve to be up at the top of the league but they were favourites at Ibrox despite having not won there in a million years and I thought that was strange.

“Rangers were 6/4 and that amazed me. It’s OK saying that after the event but that’s how it is in Scottish football right now. It’s a big adventure.”

Goram was speaking at the launch of a book by his former Motherwell team-mate, Kevin Twaddle, whose gambling addiction cost him more than a £1 million and drove him to the brink of suicide. A self-proclaimed gambler himself, Goram admitted earlier this year that he was also an alcoholic.

“I’ve all the respect in the world for Kevin,” said Goram. “We’ve all had a bet – it was the same with me. When I first started playing in the eighties if you went back to the club in the afternoon it was a punishment.

“In the afternoon you want to the bookies, the pub or a snooker hall – and if you were really lucky, all three. That was just the way of life. You had a drink, a laugh and a gamble and 90 per cent of footballers did that.

“The great thing Kevin is doing is to show young players coming through now what can happen. I’ve not been drinking for 11 months and if I could do the same thing for young players now, I would.

“I think it is a great thing that Kevin has done. People forget what a good player he was and he should have played at a higher level in his career.”

Life On The Line, by Kevin Twaddle, £11.99, Black and White Publishing